Germany’s Commerzbank is involved in a project that automates payments for recycling office documents using DLT. It has been working with data shredding firm Rhenus Data Office on a project that combines internet of things (IoT) sensors with blockchain.
Sensors attached to recycling bins alert Rhenus to collect the bins, thereby preventing avoiding wasted trips to collect half filled containers. Smart contracts check that the bin contents have been recycled, and if all the requirements are met, the payment is made. With a shared ledger, all the involved parties can see the level of recycling and transactions.
“In addition to the fully automated collection thanks to IoT sensor technology, the Rhenus Group now covers the direct debit collection command completely digitally with the aid of the Commerzbank payment solution.” said Dr. Stephan Peters, a Member of the Board of Rhenus Group. “We expect that the time-consuming examination of invoices and the monitoring of incoming and outgoing payments will be a thing of the past.”
Both Rhenus and Commerzbank are participants in a lab run by Fraunhofer IML that is developing DLT solutions for the logistics sector, including this smart waste management project.
“We intend to digitalise and automate the supply chains of our customers with our DLT-based solutions to make these more efficient, more resilient and more productive. The Smart Waste Management use case with Rhenus is a prime example of how attractive this technological approach is,” said Commerzbank’s Brigitte Réthier.
Commerzbank has been working with blockchain for several years in payments, trade finance and digital assets. Last year it ran a project with BASF and Evonik to automate supply chain payment between the two companies using programmable money that was legally e-money.
In trade finance, the bank is a member of both the Marco Polo and Contour blockchain trade finance projects. It was one of the first banks to go live on Marco Polo. It’s also a participant in Fnality, the interbank blockchain payment network.
